I'm looking for people who moved to a different country past the age of 45 and found a job there (so not "my company had a branch there and I was transferred" but "I would like to move there and need to find a way") to share their story with me.

Alex Psmith

@wanderingleaf I was younger than 45, but moved to different countries twice and found a job. However, I would highly suggest you find work before you move and work on getting your residency. You can always look for new work once you're settled (that's what I did). It's damn difficult to find work without a work sponsor if you're not a resident.

It's absolutely not too late, but it requires a lot of planning.

Genstart🏳️‍🌈

@pms
@wanderingleaf
The short version is, that moving to another country at the age of 58 is the most strenuous and the best thing I ever did.

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska

@wanderingleaf Not a big story, but here it is. In 2019 we (me and my then wife, now ex) have decided to leave UK (also not our home country). And because she had more nichee occupation, we have decided that she will look for the job first, then I will follow. Finally, she has landed a job in NL, I've started looking for something for myself, and here I am.

Ovidi Nawer

@wanderingleaf it's related to your country of origin too. If you're from a country that most spanish people consider "superior" to Spain, you might have an easier time looking for a job.
Just do It before leaving your own country.
I'm notoriously younger, but there's an absurd amount of englishpeople living in Alicante that can't even speak spanish properly that live there permanently around that age.

Pino Carafa

@wanderingleaf just saw your edit: "damn did I wait too long and will moving to another country even still be an option for me or am I too old"

If you feel up to it I'd say no, you're not too old.

But it might be best to first find that job on "the other side" and arrange your accomodation first. If I were still "free and single", I'd happily move elsewhere, but pushing 60 I would not want to arrive somewhere with just a suitcase to my name and not knowing where I'd be staying that night.

That’s a moray

@wanderingleaf You're never too old to anything. That said moving countries is an ordeal, and only you can know how you'll deal with everything. It's true that age creates some restrictions, but it also has affordances. The old adage, "wherever you go, there you are" is really true.
Practically speaking, looking into finances, pensions, taxes and all that is a good idea so that you don't get surprises down the line. But you've got 20-30 years of working life ahead of you to figure it out too.

Howard Chu @ Symas

@wanderingleaf I was 46 when I moved from the US to Ireland. I now live in the Donegal Gaeltacht, so yeah I've been learning Irish too.

I didn't have a job in Ireland, no work visa. The actual visa category that I stayed on doesn't exist any more, so unfortunately you can't do exactly what I did...

StoneBear :potion_genderqueer:

@wanderingleaf In response to your edits: (1) Never too late to do a thing with respect to age. (2) With respect to _politics_, *now* is the second-best time to _execute_ on Operation GTFO. (The best time was before the end of 2024, but that's of course no longer an option, unless you're a Time Lord...)

Bruno Girin

@wanderingleaf
I'm in my 50s and I recently moved from the UK to Spain. Following exactly the same train of thought you did, I took a different approach: I changed jobs in the UK to an international company with offices in the UK and Spain. I mentioned my desire to move in the interview. I started the job in the UK then asked to move, at which point they transferred my contract from the UK to the Spanish office with adjusted salary. It took 2 years with a clear path forward all along.

Bruno Girin

@wanderingleaf
The process would have been easier if I had asked to move to France as this is where the company HQ is, which suggests that one way to do this is to join a company that has a HQ in your target country and an office in your home country: asking to move to HQ is always easier.

Another advantage of an international company is that they may have language courses for their employees. Mine does and covers all the languages where they have offices.

Nobody ناچیز नास्ति (he/him)

@wanderingleaf
I might be one in the near future...

Matthew Martin

@wanderingleaf 100% comes down to which countries are open to immigration from your country and if your job skills can be converted to work in one of those countries. Also, after a certain age, if you move to a low cost country, then you can basically retire early & supplement your savings with remote work (which is probably completely unreliable)

xinit ☕ / 🗑‍🔥

@wanderingleaf
I was offered a job in the Netherlands in 2018 at nearly 48 and moved from Canada for it. It can happen. I was idly looking for 3 years, and maybe only looking seriously for about 10 months.

@Em0nM4stodon

xinit ☕ / 🗑‍🔥

@amsterdameric
Nearly the same synopsis here, though my spoken dutch is poor. I work mostly with Germans in an English office, so not ideal. Oh, and we bought bikes here.
@wanderingleaf

Chuck

@wanderingleaf A friend from college moved to Brazil when they were late 30's. They got a job working for a (the?) telephone company which was upgrading their switching networks. They learned Portuguese (it was only their second language), got married, and became a citizen of Brazil. It was quite a change for them.